Few politicians’ speeches are so well remembered and so often plundered as those of Churchill in the war.
“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” (Churchill, wireless broadcast, 1940)
Boris Jonson’s referral to the sunlit uplands outside the EU was in poor taste. A tawdry, inappropriate reflection on the sacrifices made in the war. But I digress, Churchill referenced this 19th century poem by Arthur Hugh Clough in an April 1941 wireless broadcast describing the lines as “less well known but which seem apt and appropriate to our fortunes tonight”.
Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
Churchill quoted the first verse in his speech but when the Prime Minister visits the Oval Office he might try to curry favour with the President by reciting the last verse standing by Churchill’s bust. Remember he has to be charming not sincere, so could try this.
Shores of the utmost West,
lands of the setting sun,
welcome the heavenly guest
in whom the dawn has come:
he brings a never-ending light
who triumphed o’er our darkest night.
Interesting that Lady Redesdale (Churchill’s cousin by marriage) had the title of this great poem inscribed on the gravestone of her beloved daughter, Unity Mitford.
It is very interesting. I visited her grave many years ago and had forgotten.
https://christopherbellew.com/fettiplace/
The latter extract is from the stirring hymn ‘Hills of the North, Rejoice’, by Charles Edward Oakley.
Will Prime Minister and President sing from the same hymn sheet?